This course will critically explore the contemporary and historical environmental issues associated with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in order to understand the relationship between nature, politics, colonialism, culture, and geography. First, the course will interrogate the geographic label, Middle East, to understand how American and European literature, politics, and culture created different bodies of knowledge and replicated popular discourses that justify intervention in West/Southwest Asia and North Africa. Understanding the Middle East as a geographical construction also allows us to critically think through how environmental issues are interconnected with the global and localized histories of colonialism, imperialism, and empire. Students will read and discuss scholarship on development, postcolonial theory, environmental history, and political ecology. Throughout the semester, students will complete a project on a topic of their choosing, developing it from start to finish with instructor and peer feedback.
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